Preston Pub Sign Study - The Station Hotel

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Most big town’s and cities have railway hotels in close proximity to their mainline railway stations. Commuters who need to catch early services or arrive too late at night in a town to head on to the next port of call need places to stay. Other travellers, with time to kill before a train is due, often wait in the pub until they need to head for the platforms. The Railway Hotel at Preston is a particularly noted one. It provided free buffet meals for all allied servicemen during both World Wars, thanks to the work of pioneering Suffragette Beatrice Blackhurst in founding the Preston Soldiers And Sailors Free Buffet Association. Beatrice got the buffet launched in 1915 and maintained it until a year after hostilities ended in 1919. The buffet was restarted for servicemen in the Second World War. Three million and two hundred and fifty men enjoyed the buffet during the First World War alone. The pub is now a regular open mic performance venue as well as having station timetable screens in the hotel bar seating areas so customers can be notified of changes to train timetables instantly. The extension of the railway station itself in 1861 to accommodate more lines demolished several pubs, but the Railway Hotel survived and flourished. The sign depicts a typical golden age railway scene, as a locomotive steams through and a railway porter on the far platform goes about his duties.